


Task Force Y

by Lady_Anonymia



Category: Suicide Squad (2016), Video Blogging RPF, Youtube RPF
Genre: "What are we? Some kind of Suicide Squaaaaaaaad?", And that's how this came about, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, How Do I Tag, I just thought to myself "What if Youtubers were also metahuman criminals?", Inspired by a Movie, It's a collection as opposed to a linear story, No Spoilers, So yeah, Suicide Squad AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-10 11:16:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7842802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Anonymia/pseuds/Lady_Anonymia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two of Amanda Waller's "talent scouts" are sent back to the Belle Reve Penitentiary to find inmates for Task Force Y, a dispatch team that could work as a back-up for Task Force X, the Suicide Squad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Void

**Author's Note:**

> Candidate #1080: ????? ????? (alias Void)

The camera feed changes to another prisoner, static flickering in and out before disappearing. In this cell, a thin man sits cross-legged in the middle of the floor, his hands resting on his thighs, virtually immobile. He has long limbs, with short, dark brown hair. The strangest thing about him is the white mask covering his entire face. With two circles for eyes and a short line for the mouth, the mask doesn’t strike you as particularly intimidating. You turn your recorder on—you’ll type all this up later—and look at the guard for explanation. He obliges.

“That there’s Void; least, that’s what everybody ‘round here calls ‘im. He’s got a handful of life sentences fer mass murder; they found ‘im sittin’ on a park bench surrounded by 38 dead bodies. Blood, gore, th’ works. Men, women, an’ children. He was completely clean, too. They chalked it up to metahuman mumbo-jumbo an’ chucked ‘im in here. Didn’t even put up a fight, don’tcha know.”

“And his real name?”

The guard shook his head, running fingers through his thinning hair. “Don’t know his real name: nobody does, ‘cept fer th’ woman who named ‘im. We looked all over, too, but without a face to match it to or any a your fancy archives an’ searchers, we didn’t think it was worth figurin’ out.” 

“‘Without a face?’” You narrow your eyes at the guard, and you can sense him cower inwardly. You have that effect on people. “So what, you didn’t confiscate the mask?”

“Tried to, but we couldn’t pull it off. ‘Sides that, th’ woman who touched it last put a huntin’ knife into ‘er chest, an’ we can’t risk losin’ people to any more weird shit from th’ inmates, ‘scuse my language.”

“She killed herself? And you’re sure it’s from touching the mask?”

“It was the mornin’ immediately followin’ th’ attempt that it happened, ma’am, an’ we do verify everyone who works here’s mentally sound. Wouldn’t want another Quinzel runnin’ ‘round Belle Reve.”

You grimace as the image of Harley Quinn comes into your mind. “So what, the mask is magical or something? We’re not dealing with anymore ancient hocus-pocus, not after Enchantress.”

“‘M afraid I can’t tell ya that either, ma’am. What I can tell ya, though, ‘s that in th’ 10 years he’s been in so far, he’s never once taken it off. Fer anythin’.”

Your eyes widened. “Food? Water?”

“We don’t even bother no more. He don’t touch it, an’ he don’t seem to need it.”

_ Someone who doesn’t need to eat? _ , you think.  _ There’s something interesting. One less person to provide for. _ “Does he sleep?”

The guard shrugged nonchalantly. “He lays in the bed an’ faces up all night, but we can only assume.”

_ And he doesn’t need to sleep? What kind of creature  _ **_is_ ** _ this guy?  _ “And his abilities?”

“Hypnosis, I s’pose’s a word fer it. He just, I dunno, gets inside people's heads. Makes 'em go batshit insane, ‘scuse my language. Can’t have ‘im in the main area ‘cause the other prisoners—they get antsy ‘round ‘im. Clawin’-their-eyes-out-with-their-fingernails antsy. Can’t even have guards outside th’ door to his cell in solitary, we got to keep tabs on ‘im through th’ cameras. All the people we stationed needed a therapist within a few days, if they hadn't put a bullet in their skulls th’ next mornin’, or worse. The lucky ones were just convinced lettin’ ‘im go back to the main cells was th’ right thing to do.”

_ Jesus Christ.  _ “And there's nothing that can do for defense, as far as you know?”

“Nothin’ we know a, ma’am.” The guard meets your eyes offers you a small, nervous smile. “‘S nothin’ to worry ‘bout, though. Other than gettin’ outta solitary, he hasn't done anythin’ wrong; he's one a our best-behaved. 98% a the time he’s not tryin’ to pull nothin’.” 

“So the other 2% of the time he’s a wild card with an unknown amount of lethal psychic power.” You tap a few fingers on the desk, and take a deep breath. “Anything else I need to know?”

“Uh, he don’t talk much,” the guard offers, fidgeting with his hat on the table. “I could prob’ly count the amount a words he’s said this year on both hands. Other than that, I think ya know everythin’ about ‘im.”

You sigh, turning off the recorder, and looking back at the camera feed. ‘Void’, as he’s called, is no longer sitting on the floor, but pacing around the cell, agitated. Suddenly, he stops, and looks straight at the camera. You get the uncanny feeling that he’s fully aware you’re watching him. The soulless eyes of the mask seem to stare into your very soul. 

“Switch the feed,” you say quickly, shaking your head to get rid of the prickling on the back of your neck.

“Ma’am? Are ya—”

“ _ Switch the feed _ ,” you hiss again. “I’ve seen enough. Let’s move on to the next candidate.”


	2. Tank

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Candidate #11037: Seán William McLoughlin (alias Tank)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, keep in mind that the people from the first chapter and the people from the second chapter are not the same! I will most likely switch between my intentionally vague female and male agent every chapter, so this is the male agent's first chapter.

Another click, another grainy camera feed. In all honestly, you’re already tired of this (not to mention some of the inmates really freak you out), but you suppose there’s nothing that can be done for it. Not if you want to keep your job, at least. You drag a few fingers across your chin, wincing at the feeling of rough stubble. You really need to shave.

The female guard in front of you looks like she doesn't want to be here, too, but it's more out of boredom then nervousness. She tosses her violet curls and gestures lazily at the screen, which seems to be partially obscured by some neon green goo. You shiver: the idea of being anywhere near that stuff makes your skin crawl.

Past the ooze, a man is bouncing a ball the same bright green color off the walls of the cell. He's petite; not taller than six foot with a small, thin frame. The pale skin, sunken eyes, and messy green hair only adds to his frail, sickly appearance. _He must really have a thing for that highlighter green color, it's everywhere_ , you think privately.

“Can I start?” she drawls, not disrespectfully, but the boredom in her voice could not be any more obvious.

You swipe through your phone and find your recording app, and turn it on. “Go ahead,” you say.

“This is Seán William ‘Jack’ McLoughlin, sir, acute accent over the ‘a’ in his first name. 25-year old Irishman with two life sentences for 27 counts of bank robbery, 12 of them overseas, 3 aggravated.”

 _25 with 27 counts of bank robbery?,_ you think, half-impressed. _What, this kid didn’t have any hobbies?_

“Ireland didn't want him back,” the guard woman continues, “so we figured we'd keep him here. We like to call him Tank.”

“Tank?” you repeat quizzically. _So what, this kid has super strength or something? Somehow, I'm having a lot of trouble believing that._

“Yeah, I know what you're thinking. ‘This guy, a tank? What am I missing?’ It's not Tank like Panzer tank, sir, it's Tank like septic tank.”

You're not quite sure whether that makes more or less sense. “I assume the nickname has to do with his abilities,” you muse aloud.

“Ding ding ding. Our Jackaboy here is basically a walking, talking ball of acidic goop. First time we tried to catch him, sir, he turned radioactive green, destroyed Fox’s left hand and melted through the floor. That's why his cell doesn't have any bars or anything, nothing he can phase through to get out.”

Now that she mentions it, you notice there are no doors in the cell. Previously you'd thought the camera just wasn't able to see it, but the cell is small enough that the static camera can see most all of it from the corner.

“We get him his stuff through the hatch on the ceiling,” the guard states, answering your unvoiced question. “His powers don't allow him to get bigger, so he's not able to get up there. Cell itself is made up of 6-inch titanium walls, which is acid resistant. He mostly just sits in there and bounces his eye around. It glows in the dark, so even at night you hear the bum-bum-bum—(she mimes a ball being thrown at a wall and coming back with her hand)—if you're watching the cameras.”

It takes you a moment to process this comment. You gaze back at the screen, watching the green ball bounce rhythmically off the opposite wall. The dull thunking sounds haven't ceased the entire conversation. Originally, you'd thought there was some sort of string on the ball, but now...

“So that's...”

“His left eye, sir. It's the only part of him that stays that gross color when he's normal. Otherwise, all of him is that color, he drips everywhere, and he glows in the dark.”

The thunking of the eye, with its optic nerve flying behind it, continues in the background. Inwardly, you retch.

“Can you tell me anything else about him, in a more general sense? We like to get a feel for inmates before we—”

“Send them on suicide missions? I completely understand, sir,” the guard finishes, and although that wasn’t what you were going to say, it pretty much amounts to the same thing. “I don’t think he’s quite as unpredictable as some of the other inmates here. Energetic, sure, but not a wild animal.”

You glance at the screen. “Energetic?”

She shrugs, tying her dyed hair into a ponytail. “The energeticism comes and goes in waves now, sir, and you just happened to catch him in a pretty low-key state. Prison’ll do that to you.”

You nod, having seen a fair amount of before-and-after inmates in your tenure as a U.S government worker. “Any family on the outside?”

“That we could find? A brother and a fiancée, sir. The brother’s currently in the Himalayas, as far as we know.” The guard gives you an eyeroll. “Authors, amirite? The fiancée’s living with her family in Denmark.”

 _Poor guy_ , you think, _trapped in here, away from his wife-to-be. That doesn’t make him any less revolting, though, not when he’s in here, throwing his eyeball off a wall over and over again._

“Any other questions about him? Honestly, sir, you look a little green yourself.”

“I'm fine, thank you,” you reply, not wanting to think about the color green anymore. “Let's continue on, shall we?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had to do a little bit of research on lethal acids and their properties for this one! Hopefully I'm not on some sort of government watchlist now :-P


	3. Durrin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Candidate #2779: Mary Elanor Thomson (alias Durrin)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BTW, I don't actually know if that's Mary's middle name! I couldn't find it anywhere, so I made it up :-/

The next feed comes up, and (after making sure your recorder is on) you register quite a few weird things. The first thing that catches your interest is that the person lounging on the floor of the cell does not have any legs. They aren’t wearing any pants, and there seems to be some sort of tail in place of the legs. It looks exactly like a snake’s tail; scaly, lighter on the underside, and very long. The odd fuchsia colored-scales fade nicely into a deep violet the farther down the tail you look.

The next thing you notice is the large serpent slithering its way across the person’s shoulders. It’s a monster of a snake: seventeen feet long is your guess, and even that estimate is on the low side. It’s yellow and white, and its immense size shows when it moves; even through the camera feed you can see the lean muscles inching the beast along. You’re surprised the person can even bear the weight of the thing.

The last thing you notice is much more shocking: the person in the cell is a woman. White blond hair cascades over the snake’s body. Her eyes are large and expressive, although you can’t make out their color, or whether their pupils are slits. The sleeves of her orange button-up  shirt are rolled to her shoulders, and you can see the various moles on her arms.

“There aren’t a lot of women in Belle Reve,” you comment, mostly to yourself.

“Ya got that right, ma’am. Ladies make up less than a eighth a th’ tenants. We still got a fair amount of ‘em, though, and we’ve got one of ‘em now. This here’s Mary Thomson, genuine Aussie an’ child abductor extraordinaire.”

“Child abductor?” you repeat. “What sort of sick bitch is this woman? I told that asshole Roberts, we’re not taking rapists—”

“Oh, ’s nothin’ like that, ma’am. Most a th’ kids she snatched were perfectly fine when th’ police found ‘em; dressed, well-fed, th’ works. Some of ‘em had a few snake bites, but nothin’ serious. Thomson took real good care of ‘em. I think only one of ‘em died, an’ th’ investigators found out later he was bein’ fed to th’ pets. They got her—” he pointed at the screen, “—on one count of murder of a minor, 13 counts of child abduction, 29 counts of illegal ownership of exotic animals, not to mention she’d practically raised these kids to be criminals.”

“I assume the ‘exotic animals’ were all snakes?”

“You assume correctly, ma’am. Nowadays, Ms. Thomson goes by Durrin.”

“How do you spell that?

“D-U-double R-I-N. Means “snake” in Wagiman.”

“Wagiman?” you echo. _I’ve been doing quite a bit of that, haven’t I?_ “What is that?”

“Indigenous Australian language, ma’am. Practically extinct. We don’t know yet if there’s some sort of Wagiman sorcery involved in her transformation or her abilities, but she’s had her powers as long as we’ve tracked her. The tail’s a new development, though, only started growin’ about 2 years ago.”

“So her powers are controlling snakes?”

“No, ma’am. Only talkin’ to ‘em.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Sometimes the snakes don’t listen,” the guard explains. “Ms. Thomson does like to clarify that she don’t mind control the snakes or nothin’, she just asks ‘em for favors an’ they’re willin’ to provide.”

You narrow your eyes. “Spend a lot of time chatting with Snakerella, do we?” you sneer.

“O-Other than that,” the guard stammers, rubbing the back of his neck nervously and avoiding your gaze, “she’s able to secrete poison from her skin an’ spit venom. Makes her pretty dangerous. I s’pose th’ tail counts as an ability as well.”

“Hm. Any family we should know about?”

“It’s assumed she was a native Wagiman, but with only about 10 or so people who still speak th’ language alive, there’s only so much we could do as far as research. We could only trace one person back to her concretely, an’ he’s prob’ly on your list.”

Now you’re really intrigued. “You mean he’s here? An inmate at Belle Reve?”

“An’ a meta-human to boot, ma’am,” the guard replies, confirming one of your worst fears. “Name’s Kenneth Morrison. If we see him, I’ll talk a l’il bit more ‘bout him, but he an’ Ms. Thomson here were engaged before they were thrown in th’ slammer. Still are, I s’pose.”

“Were they working together on the outside?” you inquire.

“Yes, ma’am, although they weren’t arrested together.”

Two meta-humans in a criminal business and romantic relationship, and you may just put both of them on the task force. _What is this, a goddamn logic puzzle? “Put five people on Task Force Y without getting yourself or any civilians killed due to your shitty choices!”_ You pinch the bridge of your nose. This is turning out to be more difficult that you anticipated.

“Everythin’ okay, ma’am?” the guard asks you, leaning forward concernedly.

“I’m trying to create a group of dangerous metahumans to protect the rest of the country without getting us all killed or getting me fired. The lives of any future victims of metahuman-related attacks are relying on my decision today.” You look up and glare daggers straight into the guard’s watery blue eyes. “No, I’m not okay.”

The man’s eyes go wide. You take a deep breath to try and compose yourself. Sure, this man has some sort of strange attraction to Snake-girl, but he didn’t deserve that. He’s scared enough of you as is. You’re not going to apologize, though. It’s not something you do very often. “What about the snake?” you say, instead of 'Sorry'.

“What about it, ma’am?”

You give the guard an exasperated look. “I notice the other inmates don’t have any pets; why does she?”

“Snake came with her, ma’am. She calls it Nyenh-na; it’s th’ Wagiman word for ‘quiet.’ When we tried to take it, it wrapped ‘round Ms. Thomson an’ we weren’t able to get it off. Snakes are pretty strong, don’tcha know. Snake hasn’t left th’ woman’s side since, an’ it eats whatever it can get its hands on.” A pause. “Metaphorically speaking.”

“I figured as much.” You look back at the camera, where Durrin is stroking her albino python under the chin and cooing to it lovingly. Its thick body coils around her shoulders and cozies up to her hand, its forked pink tongue flicking out once or twice. You’ve never been overly fond of them, but this woman has made you positively loathe them.

“Let’s keep going. With any luck I won’t have to be here much longer.”

“Of course, ma’am.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More research, this time on indigenous Australian languages! My internet history is sort of a mess :-P


	4. Morpho

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Candidate #909: Mark Edward Fischbach (alias Morpho)

“Are you ready for the next person, sir?” the guard woman asks you, her finger hovering over the controls for the grid of screens in front of you. You reactivate your phone’s recording app and nod.

She presses the button a few times. You see a person who looks like they’re made of cubes and a woman with fox ears and a tail before the switching stopped. It lands on a muscular man, lying on the floor of his cell, facing up at the ceiling with his hands folded on his chest. Thick black hair, probably around the same height as the inmate from earlier, Tank. He’d look like a standard inmate if he didn’t keep turning from side to side, as if caught in a fever dream.

Though the feed is muted, it’s clear that he’s talking. To whom he's talking is a mystery. He turns to the right, says something, stays still for a moment, then turns to the left and continues talking.

“Strange bird, isn’t he?” the guard muses, her eyes on the screen, before turning back to you. “This is Mark Edward Fischbach. He’s 27 years old and we found him in Ohio, so that might be where he’s from, but we can’t really be sure. On the outside, he went by Morpho. Thrown in here for a suitcase full of fraud charges, on all levels. Honestly, with his record, I’m surprised they were able to catch him at all.”

“And his abilities?”

“He’s a shapeshifter. Usually he just changes his facial features, but we’ve seen him fully transform. It’s pretty wild.”

“Shapeshifter? How did he come by those powers?”

“If you’re asking whether or not he can shapeshift through magic, you have nothing to worry about. He developed the power himself.”

 _Strange phrasing. She could have just said he’s been able to shapeshift his whole life._ “Can you tell me a little bit about his history?”

“Well, as is with a lot of these meta-humans, there’s only so much we could find out. Many of them go through hundreds of hoops to destroy any ties to other people. It’s been especially difficult for us to find background on Mark. We’re not even sure where he’s from; in our records, his life starts at 21 years old.”

 _21 years of a person’s life, gone? How do you even manage to erase that much of your past?_ “This isn’t necessarily...pertinent, but...”

“You wanna know how we haven’t found anything from two decades of someone’s life,” the guard finishes, and you’re beginning to suspect she’s a meta-human with the way she’s been reading your thoughts. “Because of his disorder, it’s difficult to get any information out of him, and he’s been hard to track because of his ability. Besides that, my guess is that he just really cares about making sure his family doesn’t get dragged into all his crime—at least, one of him does.”

 _Disorder? ‘One of him?’_ “You mentioned a disorder. So, what, he’s crazy?”

“They really don’t tell you anything, do they? Well, I guess not, that’s what you’re here for, right? I mean...technically, you could call him crazy, but he’s not Joker-crazy or Quinn-crazy or anything.” She sighed. “Mark has Dissociative Identity Disorder.”

You only know a little about Dissociative Identity Disorder, but everything you know is from video games, books, and movies. You’ve never seen a case of DID in real life before.

“The Mark in the cell is supposedly not the Mark we’ve been looking for history on. We’ve asked about it multiple times, and everytime he says, and I quote, ‘I killed him. I killed that son of a bitch and you’re not getting him back.’ If that’s true, at least in a metaphorical sense, there’s no way we could get any information about his past from him. The nature of alternate personalities means the Mark in that cell actually has no recollection of the past. Each personality has its own memory.”

“You seem to know a lot about all of this.”

The woman blushes, chewing on a lock of purple hair. “Yeah, well, I’m a psychopathology student. This kind of stuff was on my exams. You think I wanted to work here? I’m just paying bills until I get my doctorate.”

You smile a little, before conceding that you should get back to business. “So what _do_ you know about him?”

“We know he developed his powers in his freshman year, semi-secretly. It’s generally been surmised that he was attempting to make something that could help people with disfigurements look more normal. He used th—”

“Wait a minute,” you stop her, “you said he ‘developed his powers in his freshman year?’ So, he created the technology in a lab at a college?”

“Yes, sir. He was a bio-engineering student, real smart guy. He tested the tech on himself and gave himself the shapeshifting abilities. Because we don’t know about his past, we can’t say if he’s always had DID or if it was a side effect of the tech, but we’re leaning towards the tech being the cause. Asking around at his old college, people seemed like they really liked him. Heart of gold and a lotta potential. Now look at him.”

Both of you sit in silence for a moment, looking at the low-quality feed coming through, watching Morpho talk to himself. You’re all too familiar with stories like this.

“Anyways,” the woman finally says, “I’m pretty sure that’s all you need to know about him. Are you ready to move on to the next person?”

“Just a moment,” you reply. “You’re positive this guy hasn’t done any experimentation with sorcery or magic or anything like that? Waller’s been pretty clear with us that we’re not to look for people who have dabbled in those sorts of things.”

“110%, sir,” she responds, already switching to the next camera feed. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from working here, and seeing the meta-humans that walk in and out these doors, it’s this: science is scarier than magic. Magic is inexplainable, but science...science is recreatable. Science is logical. Science is human. And nothing, sir, _nothing_ , is more terrifying than the human mind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And if you didn't know about Dissociative Identity Disorder, now you know! All the stuff in here about DID is factual facts, my friend.


	5. Ursur

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Candidate #8347: Kenneth Charles Morrison (alias Ursur)

The guard clicked through more screens, and stopped on one suddenly. “Ah, there he is!” he exclaimed. “I knew we’d see ‘im soon enough, but not this soon.”

“Hold on,” you say, fiddling with your recorder. It occasionally jams, so you have to reset it. Your partner brought his phone, and urged you to do the same, but you have a certain fondness for the old ways, so to speak. 

The man across from you waits patiently, and begins one you've signaled him to start.

“This here’s Kenneth Morrison, otherwise known as Ursur. He goes by Ken.”

_ Ursur? As in “Ursa?” As in bear? _

“So this is Durrin—ah, Ms. Thomson’s—boyfriend?”

“Fiancé, ma'am, but you've got th’ right idea. We caught ‘im in Arizona, I believe, with a Mary Poppins carpetbag-full a A&B an’ murder charges.”

“A Mary Poppins carpetbag-full?”

The guard’s eyes go wide. “You've never seen Mary Poppins?”

“I'm afraid not.”

“One a my favorite movies. You really should watch it, ma'am. Jus’ means Mr. Morrison here has an uncommonly large amount a charges.”

You look at the camera feed, trying to take your mind off other Disney movies you haven't gotten around to yet. It's even more low-quality than the others: you can just barely make out a ball of dark..hair? Fur?

_ What the hell? _

“Is that...him?”

“Yes, ma'am. Under a few layers a fur, granted, but that's ‘im.”

“Let me guess: he's a bear hybrid.”

“You're gettin’ good at this, ma'am,” the guard chuckles. “He's been in hibernation for a month or two now, so I doubt we'll see him do anythin’ interestin’.”

“Good. ‘Interesting’ is not a word I want to hear about metahuman activities in this hellhole. Tell me what's in his files.”

“Uh, 30 years of age, born an’ raised in Mississippi. Traveled to Alaska on a s’posed huntin’ trip an’ didn't come back for seven months. Th’ next time we got word of ‘im he had mauled two teens beyond recognition.”

“Did you know it was him at the time?”

“Not at th’ time, ma'am. It's Alaska, after all, an’ maulins’ do happen once every blue moon. But th’ attacks started movin’ southerly, an’ more people were dyin’ an’ bein’ critically injured. We put the puzzle pieces together an’ caught ‘im ‘bout three months after th’ attacks started. One a our fastest catches,” the guard finishes proudly.

“M-hm. And was he caught before or after Ms. Thomson?”

“A few days after. Why do you ask, ma'am?”

_ A killer who's been getting away with mass murder and injury suddenly taken in a few days after the capture of his fiancée? Something tells me this Kenneth character is smarter than the Belle Reve buffoons give him credit for. _

“No reason,” you say, waving the guard off. “So, what, he just turns into a bear?”

“Well, he's pretty bearish anyways, ma'am. Sharp teeth, hair everywhere...” The guard puffs his ruddy cheeks out and flexes. “Big.”

“But not a bear?”

“Not a bear, ma'am. Normally he's just an overly hairy, muscular, sharp-toothed human bein’.”

_ Ugh, this isn't going to be one of those trigger metahumans, is it? Some kind of werewolf? Were-bear, I suppose? _

“Well?”

“Well what, ma'am?”

“Are you going to tell me his trigger or are we going to play 20 Questions for it?”

“Ma'am, I honestly have no idea what in the world you're referrin’ to.”

You sigh deeply. You really do not have this kind of time. “The thing that makes him turn into a bear, idiot. Is it the moon? A word? A phrase, a smell, what is it?”

“Oh...oh!” the guard exclaims, flushing with embarrassment at having misunderstood something so blatantly obviously. “Sorry, ma'am, but he doesn't have one.”

_ I don't know if that's great news or horrible, horrible news, but I'm leaning towards pessimism right now. _

“Mr. Morrison here can transform back an’ forth whenever he likes. He does once or twice in th’ cell every day to, uh, keep himself sharp."

_ So, on one hand, there's no waiting until the third week of an ancient calendar month or some bullshit like that for dispatch. On the other hand, he could go berserk at any moment while around people like Waller. There's no way to control the change from the outside. _

“He could go bear-serk,” you snicker to yourself, because it's been a long day and you figure you'll allow yourself at least one bad pun.

“‘Scuse my hearing, ma'am, but what was that you said?” the guard asks, leaning forward.

“Nothing,” you reply, a little too hastily.

“Did you just say ‘bear-serk,’ ma'am?”

“I just told you what I said,” you hiss. “Absolutely nothing. Move to the next feed. I'm due to leave in 30.”

“Let's continue on then, ma'am.”


	6. Kylsk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Candidate #748: Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg (alias Kylsk)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry if this is edited poorly: I am very, very tired right now.

After conversing with the guard more about her knowledge in psychopathology, she asks if you're ready to continue on. You nod.

“Shouldn't you turn on your recorder?” She gestures at the phone next to you.

You move to turn it on, but realize with a little bit of embarrassment that you've had it on for the entirety of your conversation. You'll have to see if there's a way to edit that out before Waller and her lapdogs get a hold of it and fire you for being unprofessional.

You mime turning it on to pacify the woman across from you, and she flips a few switches and presses a few buttons.

“I know he's in here somewhere...” she murmurs, the people on the other sides of the screen flashing faster than you can register.

“What's wrong?” you ask.

“I can't find him,” she replies, although she doesn't seem as panicked about this sentence as you think she should be. “Nobody uses labels or organizes _anything_ , so it's mostly a game of memory when it comes to finding an inmate. Some of us are better at it than others, myself not included.”

She tries again, resetting to Morpho’s cell and going through more slowly. It's much easier to make out features now. A man you would only be able to describe as “Jello-Man,” a man with black wings and auburn hair, and a woman with an impossibly long tongue scooping food into her mouth from a bowl across her cell. You close your eyes after that one; you don't think you're ready to see something else like that.

The guard stops on a screen that's entirely white. You're not quite sure what she's trying to show you. _Is the inmate a human lightbulb or something?_

“Ugh, that's why I couldn't find him, the camera is completely frozen over.” She turns to you. “I told them to get some sort of upgrade for the camera in metahuman cells—for this one, frost-proof glass, a windshield wiper, a warmer fucking room so his powers aren't as strong—but most everyone here is too cheap or too dumb to listen to reason.” She sighed. “I'm going to have to talk to him, so just...bear with me here.”

She turns up a knob and presses a round blue button, and a green light flashes. She holds down a beige square.

“Felix? Can you hear me?”

A pause, then an amused, haughty chuckle. Something about the laugh unnerves you.

 _"Hej igen_ , Miriam,” the voice replies. It's unfamiliarly accented, and raspy.

“Felix, I'm not going to beat around the bush here, okay? I need you to do something for me.”

“Mm. _Jag bryr mig inte_.”

“Don't be like that! It's nothing that will take you too long, I just need you to clear the frost off the camera.”

_Frost? Is that what that stuff is? Must be on pretty thick, because I can’t see through it at all. Makes me cold just looking at it._

Another laugh from the other side of the screen. “You want to see me that badly, _min älskling_?”

She rolls her eyes, looking at you meaningfully. “Not me, someone else.”

“You don’t have to lie to me, _käresta._  I know you want me.”

“And I know you are a dangerous metahuman in a high-security jail with a girlfriend that would kill me for even mentioning you.”

“ _Tja_ , that’s because she doesn’t like you anyway, _min älskling._ ”

“Exactly. Now, Felix, please do as I asked.”

A slightly static-y sigh from the other end. You’re surprised by the ease in which the violet-haired woman speaks to him through the intercom. She must talk to him quite a bit to be so comfortable with him, never mind understand the gibberish he occasionally spouts. _Miriam_ , you think to yourself, recalling what this Felix character had addressed her. _That’s a pretty name._

    The white void comes apart in flakes, as if picking itself off the camera. A man sitting in a metal tub filled to the brim with ice is revealed, his shoulders peeking out. The whole room seems to be a modified giant refrigerator, what with the temperature and the abundance of metal surfaces. The man himself has messy blond hair, and his eyes are closed. He’s tinged blue from the cold, but seems perfectly content. He is smirking at the camera, and his mouth moves. The audio is slightly delayed.

“Are you and your friend enjoying the view?”

He sits up a little, exposing his pale chest.

“Very funny, Kjellberg.” The guard— _Miriam_ , you think again—sneers, before taking a deep breath. “ _Tack för att du gör som jag frågade._ ”

“Felix” grins. “You sound like a native, _min älskling_. I told you you could do it, with a little practice. Talk to me tomorrow, hm? Once your friend has left. Maybe there are other things I can teach you.”

“I look forward to it.”

“ _Tills dess, käresta_.”

Miriam takes her hand off the beige square. You look at her questioningly. She sighs and shrugs.

“He just wants somebody to talk to, and I’m usually the one who does. He’s taken quite a liking to me, so he’s been teaching me some Swedish: that was the language, if you didn’t recognize it.”

“And you’re sure he’s not some mind-control freak trying to use you?” The thought disturbs you deeply.

“Positive, sir. This is Felix Kjellberg, AKA Kylsk. It's a name he inherited from his family: apparently certain members every few generations have this power. His powers are limited to manipulation of temperature, specifically downward. He’s likes to think he’s charming, though,” she finishes, almost affectionately.

“...so he’s Elsa, is that what you’re telling me?”

“From a scientific standpoint, not even close. From a conceptual standpoint...I guess you could say that. They have similar powers, but Felix is more experienced and much more lethal.”

“What’s on his record?”

“Mostly drug trafficking, but Felix has got his fair share of officer murder in there, too. Turns out ice and snow is a lot more dangerous than the Swedish police force originally thought.”

You nod, but your teeth are gritted. Something about this guy rubs you the wrong way. You don’t like him at all. In fact, you might just delete this entire recording so Waller doesn't consider this asshole for the task force roster. You don't want to spend any more brainpower on him.

“Other than that, he has a girlfriend who's an inmate. Pretty standard backstory, nothing that really sticks out.” Miriam looks towards you concernedly. “Sir, are you alright?”

“Fine,” you reply, too fast. “A little anxious to leave.”

She narrows her eyes at you for a moment, scrutinizing your face, before smiling a small smile.

“Well, I'll do what I can to get you out as fast as possible, sir. Let's soldier on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: "kylskada" is a Swedish word for "frostbite."


	7. Keen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Candidate #6413: Matthew Davis Patrick (alias Keen)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's MatPat's middle name? NOBODY KNOOOOWS

“'Scuse my language, ma'am, but this one's completely fuckin’ crazy.”

The guard is holding down the camera button, flipping through feeds at the speed of sound. Well, maybe that's an exaggeration, but it's really fast and it's making you nauseous just looking at it.

“How so?”

“Well, I suppose I should say his ability is, ma'am. He's a normal human bein’, as far as we know, so, no magic there, but...”

“But what? I'm leaving in 15 minutes whether you finish this or not, there's no point in cliffhangers.”

“Well, ma'am, he's basically Sherlock Holmes. Uncanny ability t’ know about what people are thinkin’ just by lookin’ at them, an’ he's able t’ tell what's goin’ t’ happen next.”

You're deeply unimpressed. “So?”

The guard sighs. “Ma'am, you'll only really understand if ya talk t’ ‘im yourself.”

You're not for this idea at all. You don't want to be any closer to anyone in this disgusting pit than you already are. “I'm not going into that heathen’s cell just so I can be disappointed in Belle Reve’s candidate choice somewhere else,” you declare, crossing your arms and setting your shoulders like an impudent child.

“Ya don't have t’, ma'am, ya can talk t’ ‘im from here. At least, ya will be able t’, once I pull ‘im up.” The guard takes his finger off the ‘switch feed’ button, scrutinizes the person on screen for a moment (a man with the head of a dog or jackal or some sort) before ticking backwards.

You are met with a man sitting cross-legged on the floor, reading a book. You can’t tell his height from here, but he doesn’t look to be too far in either direction. He has brown hair that’s tinged with grey at the roots. The man seemed to be reading the thick book idly, as if hiding behind a newspaper waiting for someone to show up.

“Here’s th’ microphone, ma’am.” The guard points to a round space, and scoots back in his rolling chair, allowing you to come forward. “Jus’ press that button when ya want t’ talk.”

In your peripheral, you see the door open, but you don’t pay attention to who it is. It isn’t time for you to leave, and you’re not going to until you finish doing your job. However, you still hesitate to press the button. Despite your outward projections, some of these people make you feel very uneasy. No point in standing here, though: you’re not backing down from talking to him like an amateur. 

“Hope you’ll excuse me, ma’am,” (you practically lunge at the guard, the outburst scares you so much) “but, uh, I was just requested ‘o escort one a t’e...rowdier prisoners. ‘Pparently they’re runnin’ short on people, which’s bullshit, if you’ll ‘scuse my language. I’ll leave ya with ‘im, and jus’ remember that if ya want t’ stop talking, press th’ beige square again.”

You wave him out, and he leaves, grumbling about the unfairness of his working conditions and the complaints he’s going to file when he gets around to it. The  _ moment  _ the guard leaves, the man on-screen flips a page and says, “Hello, agent.”

You don’t respond; you can’t, seeing as you haven’t even pressed the button yet. There’s been no indication of your presence, and yet he knows you’re there. You wait for a moment, trying to see if you can test him to go further with his abilities. In all honesty, you’d love to find out as much about him as possible without having to actually talk to him. He flips another page, and speaks again. 

“I know you’re there, agent. Trying to draw me out, are you?” He laughs, but it’s the shortest, most condescending, and most unamused laugh you’ve heard in your life, including Waller’s. “You must be a woman. I’ve only seen that type of cagey, manipulative behavior in the female agents that get sent to speak with me.”

You press the beige button. You need to respond to this. “Is that so? And how many female agents have come to see you, hm?”

“Including you? About 20—I’m glad you decided to visit me today. I’ve been getting bored with the current company and it’s always nice to see a new face, or hear one, I suppose. Your name?”

“Excuse me?” He talks quickly, and your brain is already a little scattered.

He looks directly at the camera. “Try to keep up, madam agent, I asked you for your name.”

You stay silent. You're not telling this psychopath your name.

“Shy? Or scared, perhaps? There's no need to be so apprehensive, agent, I won't lodge any formal complaints against you, I just feel like we should get to know each other because we could potentially be spending a lot of time together.”

“...Lillyan.”

“Well, then, Lillyan. What a beautiful name, agent. My name is Matthew, or as the idiots who run this filthy establishment like to call me, Keen, though I’m not sure why. It’s nice to meet you. I assume you are here to recruit me for your little team?”

“How do you know about the Task Force?”

“I know about a lot of things, Agent Lillyan, but in all honesty, why else would you be talking to me,” he raises his eyebrows at you, “bad behavior?”

“And you haven’t done anything bad?” you retaliate, raising your eyebrows back, then realizing he can’t see you. “Then why else are you here?”

“I’ve committed some acts that people could consider ‘bad’, but wouldn’t you say the word ‘bad’ is relative?”

“I would, which is why I would ask what you’ve done, so I could judge you myself,” you respond.

“I was a consultant.”

“A consultant?”

“You say that as if I’m lying. I was a simple consultant, Agent Lillyan, nothing more, nothing less.”

“Consultants don't get life sentences in a high-security penitentiary,” you argue.

“Maybe not media consultants,” he replies, thumbing through pages of the thick book in front of him. “I was a terror and intelligence consultant. My job was to advise on foreign policy and counteract terrorism.”

“Sounds like a respectable job.”

“And it was, until I dismantled a quarter of the infrastructure of the Department of Homeland Security and released 20 confidential documents to the public in 2011 by glancing at them once or twice and typing them from memory. Those documents proved that the government was conducting international deals and building weapons of mass destruction without the knowledge of the people.”

Distantly, you remember whispers of such a thing rippling through your division. Everything was being done to keep the documents off the open Web, but the Dark Web had so many different copies of the documents that tech specialists were still trying to find and erase them.

“We all have values, agent. Things we would die for, things we would kill for. It’s just a matter of finding where your line between the two is. I risked my life and my marriage for something I believed in: freedom from corruption. Where is your line, Agent Lillyan? What will you die for?”

Your eyes widen as you consider the question. Where is your line? Waller’s department is practically Shifty Central. Has anything Waller’s done gone too far for you? And, if not, why? Shouldn’t you feel a sense of right and wrong about all of this?

The guard who’s been walking you through all of these people busts into the door, gasping and sweating. “Ma’am, they...they said that they need ya...they need ya t’ come out an’ leave. They said it’s time t’ leave.”

You press the beige button, hiding the fact that the guard has once again startled you out of your wits. “Is it already that time?”

“‘Fraid so, ma’am.”

Keen mouths something to the camera, something that looks like “Think about it.”

You turn away from the screen, turn your back on all of this. “Well, then, take me out. I have better places to be than this shithole.”

It’s time for you to find the line. It’s time for you to cross it.


	8. Schiavona

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Candidate #6273: Marzia Gianna Bisognin (alias Schiavona)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHY DOES NO ONE HAVE A MIDDLE NAME

The next camera isn't in a cell, but in a lounge of some sort. While parts of the lounge don't make sense—the thick rope hanging from the ceiling, a black punching bag in the far corner, the assortment of blades scattered on the coffee table— the sheer lavishness of the room makes you feel like it's not inside of Belle Reve at all, but a video feed from a sugar baron's winter home or something. The lounge itself is hard to see in some places, as it looks like someone has raked a knife or seven over the protective glass box surrounding the camera.

"Is this...?"

"I'll explain later," Miriam replies, waving you off and taking her violet and fuschia hair out of its holder. She’s been fiddling with it nervously—taking it out and putting it back up, chewing on the ends—as if anticipating something unpleasant.

“You won't have to talk to whoever's in here, will you?” Her anxiety is not doing any favors to your own psyche. You're...worried about her, you suppose. She hasn't been so on edge with any of the other inmates.

“I shouldn't have to, no,” she replies shakily, breathing deeply. “But she makes me a little anxious.”

_ She? _

“There aren’t a lot of women here,” you comment.

“No, there aren’t, but the ones that are in here are twice as mean,” Miriam laughs nervously, “and ten times as lethal. In fact, I’d say this one is closer to 20 times.”

At her words, a woman walks into the frame. She’s slim, with long dark brown hair and large brown eyes. She’s also not wearing the typical bright orange uniform, opting instead for a black tank top and a pair of black leggings. Something about the way she walks reminds you of a lioness stalking a zebra on one of those Morgan Freeman-narrated documentaries. 

“Speak of the devil,” she murmurs, and you silently agree.

You watch together as the woman ties her hair into a loose bun, slips on a pair of fingerless gloves, and goes into a fighting stance. She takes a few jabs at the bag, testing it, before backing up, bouncing on the balls of her feet. She eyes it for a moment, then runs at it full speed.

Your eyes widen as the woman on screen runs up the side of the punching bag, lands agilely, and spins her body in a roundhouse kick, hitting the bag on its side. It swings dangerously.

“She definitely looks lethal,” you say, trying not to imagine the whiplash someone could get from being kicked that hard in the face. You could hear her foot speed through the air, like a bullet. “Does she have super strength?”

“No, sir. She's not a metahuman, she's just well trained.”

“Does ‘she’ have a name?”

“Um...” Miriam rubs the back of her neck, and doesn't continue.

“Well?”

“...I don't want to say it.”

“Alright, then, that's...fine. Can you write it?”

With a look that plainly said ‘I know you think I'm crazy but I swear I'm not’, Miriam pulled out a yellow legal pad and scribbled on it, before sliding it over to you. The writing says “Marzia Bisognin = alias Schiavona.” It's a little hard to make out, though: her handwriting is awful.

“Can I say her name?” you ask hesitantly. 

“Y-yes, of course.”

“I have two questions. One: why can't you say Schiavona?”

She winces. “Well, this is—um, I-I’m stuttering a little—but, uh, there's a...superstition in my family, I guess is a w-word for it. Basically, um, if s-someone...h-hurts you, you're not supposed to say their name, or they'll hurt you again.”

Now you're bristling, too. “How did she hurt you?”

“When she first got in, and they were transferring her to her cell, I was talking to another guard about Fel—Kylsk. The therapy people— and I use the term ‘therapy’ very loosely— don't tell us anything, so one of my co-workers asked if I thought he had a mental disorder. I said,  maybe narcissism or even psychopathy—as you saw, he's charming and subtly manipulative, which are common traits of both—and she went crazy. Fought off the people holding her, pulled a plastic knife-pin from her hair and—” Miriam angles her head up to reveal a miniscule but heavily scarred line, only a few centimeters long. Your eyes widen.

“Luckily the guards who were supposed to be holding her got her back pretty quickly, and put her in handcuffs this time. She missed my jugular by a quarter of a centimeter. If she'd stabbed me with a knife that much thicker, I wouldn't even be here.”

You ruminate on this for a bit.  _ This girl is highly volatile, at least when you talk about her significant other. If we're going to have her on the team with her boyfriend, there's no way we'd be able to avoid a confrontation at some point. _

“Anyways, you had another question, sir?”

“Oh! Yes: when did you take her in, relative to Kylsk’s capture?”

“A few months, sir. Why do you ask?”

“No reason, I just thought it might be important.”

Your phone dings, warning you that you have five minutes before you're supposed to leave.

“Quick rundown?” Miriam asked, eyebrow raised.

“Quick rundown,” you nod.

“24, born into a poor Italian family, exiled from Italy after being found guilty of crimes against the state, high treason, etc. Crossed over to the States at some point as a acrobatics performer with a traveling circus. A year later, she runs, but we don't know if it was because she had met Felix or not. Trained assassin.”

“Trained by who?”

“Most likely? The White Wolves, an all-female organization that puts the Mafia to shame. She has a tattoo on her wrist of a wolf in white ink, which is what leads us to believe that. However, there are other suspicious-looking tattoos on her body, so it's possible she's trying to throw us off.”

“And her skills?”

“As I'm sure you saw, she's very agile. She's able to scale most buildings, and isn't bad at hand-to-hand. Also, as I'm sure you saw, she's got a sort of...fondness for blades. That's where her real skills are.”

You ruminate on this. A non-meta would be less unpredictable than the meta-humans they'd be working with, but this particular one seems like more of a wild-card than the others.

“Well, sir, it looks like you'll need to go soon.” Miriam stands up. “Shall I see you out?”

“If you answer my question.”

“What question, sir?”

“Why the hell does it look like Schiavona is in—”

“The home of a very rich person instead of a jail cell?” She sighs. “Let's just say someone with a lot of assets at their disposal wanted the best for her.”

“It was a bribe?” you reply, incredulous at the thought that someone would try to bribe a high-security prison but at the same time completely unsurprised that Belle Reve took the money.

“Don't say that in front of Roberts; he'll kick your ribcage in whether you're an agent or not.”

You chuckle a little. “Not if he doesn't want Waller on his ass, he won't. Now, I believe you were going to escort me out?”

She nods, opening the door for you. “After you, sir.”

“Thank you, Miriam.”

She seems shocked that you know her name, but smiles. “Of course...”

“Jameson,” you respond. 

“Jameson,” she nods. “That’s a nice name.”

“Thank you. Yours isn’t so bad, either.”

“Why, thank you, Jameson. Now, if you would follow me, please, I’ll show you out.”

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated, and, as always, I hope you enjoyed the story!


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